QUIT STALLING, BRIDGE LAWYER TOLD
Court refuses another adjournment
AFTER refusing two applications aimed at again stalling an inquiry into the cancellation of “bridge crash” lawyer Koobashan Naicker’s bail, Durban magistrate Anita Govender pulled out her own notes on the proceedings so far.
“Here,” she said, handing them to Naicker’s advocate, Jay Naidoo.
“You have got the statements and you can also listen to the recording… I will give you 10 or 15 minutes to prepare.”
Govender’s tough stance came after Naidoo asked for an adjournment of the inquiry – in which it is alleged Naicker broke his bail conditions by driving – saying that four witnesses had already testified and he needed transcripts in order to prepare to cross-examine them.
He had earlier asked for the proceedings to be halted, pending an application to the high court to set aside the inquiry on the basis that Naicker had been unrepresented and that his rights to cross-examine witnesses had been violated. Govender refused both requests. Of the latter, she said that Naicker had elected not to cross-examine the witnesses at the time, and the inquiry had been adjourned until yesterday for this very purpose.
She also referred to the long history of delays in the matter, mainly brought about by Naicker, and said the matter had to be finalised.
When Naidoo said he was not prepared, and needed until midOctober for transcripts, she said: “He has notes, I have notes, the CD of the evidence so far is here.”
She tore off several pages from her notepad and handed them to him.
“I place on record that I am at a disadvantage,” the advocate said.
Suffering
After lunch Naidoo continued to cross-examine two of the witnesses, Jennifer Coetzee, who previously testified that she had seen Naicker driving on many occasions, and Martin Kruger, who claimed to have seen Naicker get into the driver’s seat of a gold car, outside the Durban North Spar in March, and drive off.
Coetzee, who works at Care Bears crèche in Pinetown, told the court that she had seen Naicker driving a bus belonging to the neighbouring crèche, Pinefields, fetching and dropping off children.
She had also seen him driving a white Polo.
She said she had noted, at the request of the investigating officer, the dates when she had seen him driving.
Naidoo suggested to Kruger that the man he had seen at the Spar was not Naicker.
“My instructions are that he was not in Durban North on that day, and he does not own, nor is associated in any way with, a gold car,” said Naidoo.
The case has been adjourned until mid-October for cross-examination of other witnesses, including senior prosecutor Krishen Shah, who also claimed to have seen Naicker driving.
Naicker’s trial – in which he is facing three murder charges relating to the accident in March last year on the Athlone Bridge in which Gillian Bell, her eight-yearold son, Connor, and dancer Carmen Hunter were killed – has been set down for April next year.
Relatives of those killed and members of South Africans Against Drunk Driving protested outside the court yesterday, complaining about the slow pace of the inquiry and that the trial had not begun.
“We believe that the suffering of the victims’ families is largely ignored by the courts,” said protester Charlotte Sullivan.